and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost,” and most calmly breathed out his spirit to enjoy the reward of his faith and labours in the Beatific Vision of God, A.D. 731. The Emperor Charles, truly the Great, both in body and in the glory of sacred literature, as well as for his actions, a little before his death, after the coronation of his son Louis, gave himself up entirely to prayer, almsdeeds, and learning. He himself carefully revised the Four Gospels in conformity with their Greek and Syriac originals. Thus he spent his time until his last conflict. His Book of the Gospels is religiously preserved at Aix-la-Chapelle, as I myself have seen. The heretics have been imitators of these things. It is well known of one, Philip Melancthon, that he never went anywhere, never sat down, nor supped, nor dined, without having the Gospels by his side. But, leaving the sectaries, let us return to the Apostles. S. Barnabas was with S. Paul, the first Apostle of the Gentiles. When he was going forth to convert them he wrote out the Gospel of S. Matthew, and carried it about with him wherever he went. At length, dying a martyr for the Gospel in Cyprus, he desired to be buried with it, as a pledge of the heavenly resurrection promised to him. This very Gospel of S. Matthew was found upon his breast in the time of the Emperor Zeno. See his Life. The Apostle Bartholomew, as Eusebius tells us (H. E. v. 10), took with him to the Indies the Gospel of S. Matthew in Hebrew, written with his own hand. There he left it, and more than a hundred years afterwards Pantænus found it, and brought it to Alexandria. What turned Saul into Paul? The Gospel. “These were the men,” says S. Leo (Serm. 1 on SS. Peter and Paul), “by whom the Gospel shone upon thee, O Rome. They delivered to thee, as a charge to keep, that Gospel which Christ had committed unto them: they sealed it with their blood, that thou shouldst
